Getty Mike Nolan
Mike Nolan is gone — from the coaching booth.
According to FOX Sports’ Jay Glazer, the embattled Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator will call Sunday’s showdown against the New York Giants from the sideline.
“Cowboys def coordinator Mike Nolan will be moving from booth to sideline to coach this week to be more interactive with players on that side of the ball,” Glazer reported.
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On the surface, this reads like a grasping-at-straws maneuver to remove his posterior from the hot seat. Whether he’s up high or field level, Nolan’s presence has little impact on the game plan nor his players’ performances. Putting himself at the forefront is largely a symbolic gesture that egregiously screams, “I’m trying to fix it!”
Then again, there may be something to his physical location. While Nolan, a stickler for details, traditionally prefers the vantage point of altitude, he admitted to “frustration” from a lack of face-to-face interaction over the course of a game.
“There’s always the time in the box when anyone who is calling a game would kind of feel that frustration from time to time,” Nolan told reporters Monday, via the Dallas Morning News. “So I can’t deny that from time to time I’ve had that feeling that, ‘Boy, I wish I was down on this to take care of that.’ But looking at the big picture, I’ve been trying to maintain the structure we have for that reason.”
One also has to wonder about the timing of this move, considering the structure put in place has been bad — historically bad. The Cowboys defense is bleeding points (36.5) and yards (430.5) per game, struggling with fundamentals such as tackling and gap responsibility. Both blunders were on display in Week 4 when Cleveland piled up an embarrassing 307 rushing yards against Nolan’s unit en route to a 49-38 victory.
Although he received a modicum of job security, his players appeared to be on the verge of mutiny. The flanks came outside and from within. Star pass-rusher DeMarcus Lawrence ripped the defense as “soft” and franchise legend Michael Irvin annihilated what remains of their “manhood,” while starting safety Xavier Woods copped to an intentional lack of effort, an inability to play hard for all 60 minutes each week.
To compensate, the team cut Brandon Carr, promoted Steven Parker in his place, and walked Nolan down to the grass to change — but not too much — the failing status quo.
“You have to stay the course, work on the things we need to get better at. … There have been no effort issues, in my opinion,” Nolan said Monday, via The Athletic. “We played very poorly. I hope we don’t have to live through another one of those.”
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